


gifts

by caleo



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Earn Your Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Reset Theory (Mystic Messenger), Romance, Some pining, spoilers for the 707 route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 20:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17967191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caleo/pseuds/caleo
Summary: Please, God, she’s just a dot, don’t let her grow any bigger… (And yet in every route she does.)





	gifts

Luciel is dressed fancy and relieved of most of the duties that include other people, yet the festive mood of the party eludes him.

There is a lot of laughter and camera flashes, which he tries to avoid. Publicity is good for RFA. Not that good for Seven Zero Seven.

He makes a game out of it: how many times he can come close to being in a selfie and narrowly avoiding it. Better yet, make them want one with his antics in the background and disappear before the shutter clicks. No one in the RFA can tell what he’s doing, so no one can chastise him for it. Not even Jaehee.

His streak is in two digits. Then something slips into his pocket, and he nearly yelps.

“Don’t turn,” he hears a hushed voice. _Her_ voice.

This has all the signs of an act, and Luciel feels a grin spread across his lips. His fingers try to gauge the shape of the object. It’s a plastic square.

Her presence behind his back is no more, and he allows a closer look.

A diskette with a handwritten note (so this is her handwriting) stuck to it.

‘The collector could no longer recover the data. Can you?’

So proper. So over-the-top at the same time.

He chuckles into the crowd and doesn’t care what anyone makes of it.

 

. . .

 

Luciel is at the party and he can’t seem to get excited. He is agitated beyond normal, irritated more so, feels stranded. None of those things are particularly new, but this is not the place for them.

His idle eyes register a movement: _she_ is motioning someone over, sly and covert. ‘Me?’ he mouths without glancing around and immediately receives an enthusiastic nod.

For a second, his heart forgets it should beat. He finds it odd.

“Quick!” she practically pushes him into a corner with an unoccupied table. It’s wrong to be excited about it, plain wrong, but he is.

There is a box right at her feet. She beams with mischief and holds his gaze like no one else can.

“I mean, this isn’t Elly, and I know nothing will replace her in your heart…” she makes one dramatic step to the side.

What she says is ironic too, but he bites it down as his gaze lands on the box.

“Longcat!” he recognizes, burying both hands into his hair to contain the might of his voice.

It’s laying and it’s curled, and its paws look like they belong in Luciel’s hands. The cat is also very long.

“The owner said we could pet him, but not too much,” she recites as he works the enclosure locks. “Something fur, something mood.”

Luciel buries his face in the soft fur, heart racing double time.

“All mine?” he asks with a pout.

This nonsense of a question is met with a nod somehow. Her eyes are bright, warm, and she stays still taking in his glee (or so he wishes).

“It will be our secret from Zen,” she laughs.

 

. . .

 

It’s the party, and he finds no thrill in it.

Some faces he can almost recognize when he shouldn’t. Others look right through him, and it’s even more infuriating.

His temper is short, but the party is long, or will be, and he is stunned by all of it.

“Some pickings?”

Luciel comes to it in the middle of a conversation between two men he can swear he doesn’t remember. _She_ is something new. He would totally remember her.

There is a small box of cherries clasped between her palms.

Cherries.

Cherry pickings.

Luciel recalls that humans have the ability to speak. Difficult, with his face burning like that.

A laugh will have to do when ‘feed me’ dies on his tongue (he would never).

“Can’t have the Defender of Justice miss out on his share!” she declares, swift on her feet.

“When the relentless hand of Justice is busy striking the punishment, the brightest it protects are always there to assist!” he comes up with on the go. That part of him isn’t gone, at least.

The exchange leaves him with a box of cherries and a twist in his heart that is both painful and delightful.

 

. . .

 

Luciel tries to mingle, as much as sneaking out into the back room at any given opportunity can be called mingling. The guests seem… different, unfamiliar, lights and decorations are new and blinding, but the concept of a party is so drilled into his head he can no longer fake the slightest bit of excitement.

Then _she_  waves him to come over, to a figure in a flashy outfit and erratic mannerisms of a guy that spends too much time indoors (he would know). What else is there for him to do but to oblige?

Her smile is contagious. He smells a prank, so he relaxes a little.

“Codename GAGA, this is Luciel,” she announces, chocking on a laugh. “He is not that great with computers, but he is the sharpest mind I know! Except for that wicked Seven Zero Seven, of course, but there is no doubt in my mind that both of you will have her figured out in no time!”

She gives Luciel a small nudge, playful. He laughs in response, somewhere between polite and knowing, but not too knowing.

“I leave you in good hands, sir,” she offers an excuse, one foot already off the ground. “Best hands there are.”

She inches closer, hangs onto his shoulder and tiptoes to whisper “Have fun, God Seven” into his ear. The idiot might hear her, and she knows it, doesn’t give a damn; and it’s so exciting he barely moves while her hot breath is still on his neck.

It’s devious. He loves it so much. Her.

He loves her so much.

(shit)

 

. . .

 

“Hey,” Luciel calls out, gently rolling the steering wheel with his focus on the road. In the corner of his eye he sees _her_ study him, top to bottom, senses her confusion. Then she notices the outstretched hand and eagerly slips hers into his.

The jitters leave him, she is a force to be reckoned with.

“Do you regret missing it? The party?” he asks, the memories of it (them) are vague and smudged, but it (they) must have been fun.

She keeps looking forward, like taking over his duty of watching the road, and shakes her head.

“I have what I want right here,” she squeezes her fingers against his.

Electrifying and intoxicating, her confession is that much of an overload. The road is, luckily, smooth and doesn’t distract from those feelings.

He is not quite there yet, his brother is still in danger, but damn if he is not close.


End file.
